World’s Worst Boss Won’t Let Best Employee Go to Her Graduation

The Ask a Manager blog has a post about a boss who refused to let an employee attend her college graduation because she had to work a shift for customer support. Not only that, but the boss, admits "she was my best employee by far. Her work was excellent, she never missed a day of work in the six years she worked here, and she was my go-to person for weekends and holidays."

The boss is a little turned off because the employee quit and is now looking for advice about how to track down the worker:

Even though she doesn’t work here any longer, I want to reach out and tell her that quitting without notice because she didn’t get her way isn’t exactly professional. I only want to do this because she was an otherwise great employee, and I don’t want her to derail her career by doing this again and thinking it is okay. She was raised in a few dozen different foster homes and has no living family. She was homeless for a bit after she turned 18 and besides us she doesn’t have anyone in her life that has ever had professional employment. This is the only job she has had. Since she’s never had anyone to teach her professional norms, I want to help her so she doesn’t make the same mistake again. What do you think is the best way for me to do this?

So, yeah, the Scrooge-iness factor is ramped up because the employee was homeless and somehow managed to put herself through college. The boss does not look good. At all.

The advice the manager got is probably not what he expected, but everyone else was certainly thinking:

If anything, you should consider reaching out to her, apologizing for how you handled the situation, and offering her the job back if she wants it."

The issue touched a nerve and not just in the comments section, either: